


And Love The Aftertaste

by Jiksa



Series: Rooftops & rowing boats [1]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, British Writer RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Coming Out, Cunnilingus, F/M, Miscommunication, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 13:48:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: Nick has, somewhat accidentally, been sleeping with Harry's sister. He should probably tell him. (Probably.)





	And Love The Aftertaste

**Author's Note:**

> This all happened because I stumbled across the amazing [Grimmy Appreciation Fest](https://grimmyappreciation.tumblr.com/) and thought "HUH. Nick/Gemma could be a thing." *jazz hands*
> 
> Thanks to [Flames_and_Jade](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Flames_and_Jade) and [immoral_crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow)/[LadySmutterella](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySmutterella) for cheerleading, reading through and being amazing. ♥

Nick winces when he hears the front door slam, guiltily tucking his phone away and turning the TV off. The dogs immediately go mental at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, yapping from the other side of the French doors leading out to the garden. He drains the rest of his coconut water, hoping the painkillers kick in sooner rather than later. He’s in for a proper bollocking, he's sure.

“For fuck’s sake,” Gemma calls when she swans into his living room, unceremoniously dropping her bag and keys and denim jacket on his sofa. Her drapey grey cotton dress clings in _all the right places_ , over her small breasts and wide hips, her legs looking endless in a pair of chunky black Docs. Her lips are dusky pink and glossy and _fuck_ , so much of this still doesn’t compute for Nick. “Why did I just sit through a three hour lunch with my brother where we talked about what to get Robin for his birthday and the ethics of organic farming and Harry’s inexplicable but deeply held feelings about weightlifting championships and _not_ about you?”

Nick makes a face, wrapping his blanket tighter around himself. He’s still so, so hungover and she’s _kind of_ loud and towering ominously over the pathetic ball he’s curled into on his sofa. He already wants to kiss her so badly he feels stupid with it. “I... forgot?”

Gemma drops down in front of him, tilting his chin up to meet her eyes. “‘I’ll get him drunk,’ you said. ‘He’ll understand,’ you said. ‘This won’t be a complete fucking disaster,’ you said.”

“I did get him drunk,” Nick argues weakly, trying to duck his head. She smells so nice, distractingly so, like flowers and sweetness and like she's been in the sun. “I just… accidentally got myself drunker.”

Gemma sighs, digging her nails into his jaw until he looks at her again. “And didn’t tell him.”

“Also, didn’t tell him.” Nick winces, bringing his own hand up in self defense. Those nails aren’t fair, no matter how good they feel digging into his shoulders when she lets him inside herself. “That is undeniably a thing that did not happen.”

“Nick,” Gemma says, soft and reasonable and slightly exasperated, curling her fingers around his. Nick wants to squeeze them and pull her close, but he doesn’t really know if she’d want him to. “We need to tell him.”

 _Do they, though?_ Nick’s begun doubting the logic behind their original plan, and not just because he’s a bloody coward. Maybe they could just keep fucking around behind her brother’s back forever, until she inevitably grows bored of him or one of them eventually dies and the problem magically solves itself. He sits up with some effort, rubbing at his aching head. “He’s going to freak the fuck out.”

Gemma sighs, folding an arm over his knees and running her fingers gently through his hair. He tries not to lean into her like some hungover needy sunflower seeking warmth and sunshine and affection. “He’s going to freak out worse if he finds out from someone else.”

Nick can’t really argue with that. A few of his friends already know, he thinks a few of hers do. The conversations he’s had so far have been awkward enough: Pixie bursting into incredulous laughter and flapping her hands about, Henry repeating “but she’s a lady-type person with _lady parts_ , Nicholas,” as though he suspected Nick had failed to notice that particular detail about her, Gillian covering her mouth with one hand and just staring openly at him for a long, horrible moment. Rita had winked and said, “You could’ve just got off with me if you wanted to try it on with girls, you know. I’d have been gentle with you.”

But it’s not like he’s been wanting to try anything with girls, is the thing. He’s just. It’s just. It’s not girls, not really. It’s just _her_.

It was her leaning back against chain link fence outside a dwindling house party in January, his last menthol cigarette tucked between her knuckles, her eyes soft and smiling and drunk, and him leaning in before he even realised what he was doing. She’d twisted away and laughed like she thought he was having a go at her, shrill and surprised, and then she’d met his eyes and her hand had fisted in the sleeve of his jacket and she’d stopped laughing.

It was her number in his phone and how he’d hesitated for ages before sending the first text, how he’d chainsmoked in his backyard with Pig and Stinky and wondered what it meant that he couldn’t pick a fitting emoji for what he wanted to say to her.

It was her going quiet on a Thursday night after he’d bought her dinner and walked her slowly to her tube stop, shifting from foot to foot and not catching her train. He’d looked at her mouth and she’d looked unsure, and he’d lost his nerve. Her cheeks had been a little pink though, beautifully so, and Nick had thought _maybe next time._

It was her in his apartment, an empty bottle of wine on the counter and dirty dinner dishes in the sink, magnets falling off the fridge when she’d backed him against it, her fingers curling around the back of his neck and Jhene Aiko singing _you came out the blue and then you just flipped it_ on the stereo overhead.

It was her in his bed a few days ago, groggy and sleep-warm in his T-shirt, sunrise breaking through the drawn curtains as she pressed her nose against his cheek and whispered, “We need to tell Haz.” Nick’s heartbeat had been loud in his ears and he’d felt a little bit like throwing up, and he’d wanted to say “no fuck no we absolutely cannot,” but she’d blinked her eyes open and smiled a little and his chest had tightened with something that maybe wasn’t _just_ anxiety and he’d said, “I’ll do it. Let me do it.”

Nick really likes a girl, and she maybe probably sort of likes him back at least a little bit, maybe, even if he's a notorious slag and a seasoned poof and a commitment-phobe and a hot needy mess, and that’s that.

(The internet had been equal parts helpful and distressing when he’d googled “Am I still a poof if I like a girl?” and “How do I know if I want to sleep with a girl and not just, like, be really close mates who snog every now and then and, like, look longingly at each other over glasses of wine while hanging out with my dogs?” and “Oh god oh god how do you go down on a girl oh my god I’m gonna be sick someone please draw me a map to the clitoris?”

He hasn’t googled “How do I know if I’m in completely, ridiculously, stupidly love with a girl?” because he’d probably have an actual, full blown panic attack. He also hasn’t googled “How do I tell a world renowned popstar that I’ve been secretly shagging his sister?” but in retrospect, that last one might’ve been helpful.)

He still feels vaguely sick at the thought of what Gemma’s family are going to think if they find out. Anne’s never been anything but lovely to him, even when she was vaguely suspicious that he was slipping it to her teenage son — but that might all change if she finds out it's her daughter he’s been taking to bed.

He doesn’t know if it’s the girl thing or the mental health things Gemma has handwaved about in her past, but he knows they’re a little more protective over her than they are over Harry, a little more worried that the world is going to chew her up and spit her back out. Maybe that’s just what being a girl is like, Nick doesn’t know.

She’s looking at him now, crouched down in front of him, and Nick feels distressingly warm all over. He’s constantly almost saying things he has no business saying out loud, mad things about how much he likes her, and how clever and funny and beautiful he thinks she is, and how he wishes she’d just move in and share a Netflix subscription and co-parent his puppies with him already. He doesn’t even know if she really likes him back, or if this is just a friendly accidental sex thing she’s going to grow bored of of any minute now. 

“Nick,” she says again, stroking his wilted quiff out of his eyes. “We have to tell him. It’s not a big deal, but it will be if he finds out we’ve been keeping it from him.”

“I know.” He sighs. Her eyes are green like her brother’s, but darker, like the woods at dusk or something mad and clichéd like that. He could get so endlessly lost in her if she’d let him. “Stay here tonight?”

“Nick,” she whispers, leaning in to nuzzle his nose. He thinks about kissing her all the time, even when she’s not there. It’s the silliest thing. They’ve not even had the _so, what are we calling this then, anyway?_ conversation yet and he’s already given her a key to his flat. He’s almost told his parents about her. He’s stocked up on tampons in three different sizes and painkillers in a pink girly packet, just in case. “I’m still cross with you.”

“Fair enough.” He gets his hands around the backs of her knees and pulls her into his lap. Her dress rides up her thighs, exposing her strong legs to his wandering hands. She’s overdue for a shave, her skin prickly under his clammy palms. He loves the feel of her freshly shaved thighs against his face when he goes down on her, how she’s smooth and lickable all over, even inside her lacy underthings.

But with time he’s finding that he loves this more, the scruff and stubble on her skin when she’s gotten lazy or less self-conscious or whatever she’s getting with him as time drags on. He likes to think she’s letting him see more and more of her, letting her guard down, settling in. 

(Though maybe it means she's just getting bored, says that nasty voice at the back of his head.)

He wants soft, unruly brown curls peeking out from behind the worn elastic of comfortable cotton pants, but he doesn’t know how to ask for it.

(He doesn’t know if she’d ever give it to him.)

She drops her forehead against his, her arms coming around his neck. “You know I’m right. We can't keep doing this behind his back.”

Nick tilts his head until their mouths are brushing. The gloss on her lips feels tacky against his, and it’s still a little unusual, but he doesn’t mind. “Let me eat you out,” he whispers into her kiss, chasing her tongue with his. “Been thinking about it all morning.”

Well, he's been thinking about _her_ all morning, about waking up to her smiling kisses and her stale morning breath and her strong legs tangled with his, but he can't exactly say that out loud. 

She giggles, sweet and low, leaning back to get a better look at him. “Like a dog with a bone, you are.”

He feels his cheeks warm with an odd embarrassment. Licking her out is quickly becoming his favorite thing in the world, even if he suspects he’s still pretty rubbish at it. There’s just something so intoxicating about her hands in his hair and her hips grinding down against his tongue, her choked-off moans and whispered instructions and her gloriously shaking thighs. He pushes her dress up over her panties with one hand, biting his lip as he fingers the scrap of black lace covering her pale arsecheek. “These would look better on my floor, I think.”

She tilts her head, smiling at him. “Kiss me a little first.”

It still puzzles him sometimes, how differently she likes to be touched than anyone he’s been with before. It's all different, of course, how she's soft and wet and delicate in places he's used to other things. How long everything takes with her, how deliciously slowly they build up to things, how they move from orgasms to snacks to giggles to more orgasms, their bodies moving for hours until they're both sweaty and sticky and exhausted and unable to keep their eyes open. It's never been like this with anyone else he's shagged. He doesn't know if it's just the girl thing or if it's just… _her_.

He pulls her closer, getting a thigh between her legs so she’s got something to rub against as he kisses her. He props his foot on the coffee table and wraps his hands around her hips, grinding up when she grinds down.

“Yeah,” she breathes against his mouth, reaching back to undo her bra and lower the straps of her dress. Nick’s secretly relieved that she’s saved him the task; he’s yet to work out the astrophysics of timely bra removal without accidentally taking someone’s eye out. “Yeah, like that.”

He hides his smile against her jaw, getting a hand between them to touch her throat, her breasts, the delicious softness around her belly. 

She’s _wet_ by the time she’s peeled off her underwear and manhandled him onto his back, his fingers slipping against her when he tries to bring her closer to his face. “God, let me—” She huffs out an irritated sigh, nudging his shoulder with knee. “Babe, take up less space.”

Nick shifts on the sofa, trying not to dwell on the unexpected _babe_. Maybe it means something different when girls say it. He takes a moment to _look_ once she’s kneeling over his face, savours the sight of where she’s slick and wet and ready for him.

“Nick,” Gemma says, her voice strained like she’s getting impatient with this intermission. She brushes her thumb across his bottom lip and cants her hips forwards. “C’mon, please.”

He presses his fingertips into the plumpness around her hips and brings her closer. It hits him low in the stomach when he licks her; sweet and tart and like nothing he’s ever tasted before.

It’s not quite rocket science, though he suspects it’s not far off. She’s taught him what she likes though, patient and kind with him as he’s gotten his sea legs. She doesn’t always come from his mouth alone; sometimes she needs his fingers inside her or her own on her clit. Sometimes it takes her a really long time, sometimes she doesn’t come at all, but he likes it just the same, likes this feeling that they’re both figuring it out together, this mad feeling that this thing isn’t really even about orgasms in the end.

He licks her out with all he’s got, broad swipes of his tongue to warm her up, circles around her clit to build her up and little sucks when her thighs start shaking. He waits ‘til she’s right on the edge before pressing two fingers into her, hooking them up and holding on when she shudders viciously apart with his name on her lips.

Her mouth is damp against his after that, her legs still wobbly as she pulls at his pajama bottoms and settles in his lap. Her brow is pinched as she lowers herself down, her bitten mouth open on a gasp and her straightened hair curling in the sweat at her temples. She bites down on his shoulder and he bites down on all sorts of things it’s too early and too mad to say to say out loud.

He wants to shout every single one of those things from the fucking rooftops. He wants to tell his mother. He wants to tell _her._

(But first, fuck, he really needs to tell Harry.)

\--

Dinner that night doesn’t go any better than drinks had.

For starters, Nick’s spent most of the night rambling at Harry about elaborate DIY redecorating projects he has no intention of undertaking, asking whether Harry thinks the ceiling should be lowered and what Harry thinks about changing the grout in Nick’s kitchen tiles and whether he should change the carpet in the upstairs hallway or just strip it down to floorboards.

Harry’s been very helpful. Probably. Nick doesn’t really remember any of his answers.

He’d seemed mildly confused, if pleased, when Gemma turned up unannounced halfway through dinner. Harry had been seriously contemplating the height of Nick’s ceiling when Nick had excused himself to inelegantly text _I CAN’T DO THIS HOW THE FUCK DO I TELL HIM_ and _WHAT IF IT COMES TO FISTICUFFS OVER YOUR HONOUR AND/OR VIRTUE_ and _SHOULD I SET MY FLAT ON FIRE WOULD THAT HELP_. Apparently that had been enough to convince her to join them for the evening.

Well. Her exact words were, _you IDIOT, i’ll do it. getting a taxi now_ , and yet here she is, draining a glass of wine in one swallow and saying exactly nothing. She uncrosses and recrosses her legs. She clears her throat and smacks her lips a little and still, nothing.

It’s the first indication Nick’s had that she might be a little nervous, too.

“Is this an intervention?” Harry asks cautiously, drumming his fingertips on the dining table. “I feel like there should be a banner if it’s an intervention.”

Gemma still doesn’t say anything, so Nick says, “It’s not an intervention.”

“Maybe a problem to intervene about,” Harry continues conversationally, like this isn’t the most awkward and terrible thing that’s ever happened in the entirety of their friendship. “Maybe less silence. Maybe a whiteboard. Some dry pastries. A collection of assorted pamphlets.”

Nick rubs his eyes. He’s going to be sick. “It’s not an intervention.”

“Obviously,” Harry says. “Don’t even have a banner.”

“It’s a…. ” Nick waves a hand in lieu of saying actual words. Harry _knows_ Nick, is the problem. He knows all the neurotic and selfish and broken parts of him like few other people do, has seen him be selfish and careless and uninvested with people he’s shagged before. He doesn’t think he’s going to be able to handle it if Harry reacts badly, if he says anything to remind Nick that he’s nowhere near good enough for his sister. He’d be right, is the thing, but Nick’s been actively trying to pretend otherwise. “Let’s open another three bottles of wine, shall we?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Gemma hisses, meeting Nick’s eyes. She looks… he doesn’t know what she looks like. Scared, maybe. It makes his stomach clench up. “Just do it.”

Harry frowns, looking between them again. His confusion’s understandable, he wouldn’t have seen the two of them being anything but lovely to each other before. Nick swallows thickly. “So, uh, young Harold.”

The silence stretches long enough again that Harry asks, “Seriously, what’s going on?”

“I’m, uh.”

Harry’s eyes cut to his sister. “Gemma?”

She doesn’t say anything. Nick can’t see what face she’s making because he’s a coward and can’t face her, but Harry’s eyes narrow suspiciously.

Nick ends up blurting it in the end, graceless and spitty. “We’ve been sleeping together.”

Harry doesn’t really laugh. “You guys need to work on your comedic timing,” he says, sounding mildly irritated. “That wasn’t terribly funny.”

“It was little funny,” Nick tries miserably. Not _ha-ha_ funny, but maybe like, _relationship-ruining-and-deeply-humiliating_ funny. He wishes there were more wine in his glass. He wishes they’d stuck with his original plan of never telling Harry anything at all ever, of letting Gemma grow bored of him at her leisure and leaving Nick to nurse his inevitable broken heart in private.

Gemma’s voice is soft, and then her hand’s even softer on the back of Nick’s neck. Nick’s eyes flutter shut without his say so, because he’s weak and terrified and her hands on him always make him feel all melty inside. “He’s not joking, Haz.”

“What?”

Nick doesn’t really know how to say, _I’ve been shagging your sister for a few months and I’m having a very minor sexual identity crisis about it and I have no fucking idea how to talk to you about any of this but, like, she’s brilliant and she scares the shit out of me and I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner_ , so he just says, “I’ve been shagging your sister for a few months and I’m having a very minor sexual identity crisis about it and I have no fucking idea how to talk to you about any of this but, like, she’s brilliant and she scares the shit out of me and I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner.”

Harry looks a little bit like he’s been hit in the face. Nick’s a little bit out of breath.

Gemma reaches into his lap and squeezes his hand tightly. It feels warm and clammy between them; he’s not entirely sure he’s the only one sweating. “Dating,” she translates. “We’re dating.”

“Dating,” Nick repeats, surprised. Everything is a jumbled mess in his head, but maybe that’s the right name for it, for sleepless sleepovers and selfies in matching face masks and snogging everytime there’s a commercial break on Corrie. For how his chest tightens sometimes when she smiles at him with a mouthful of toothpaste in his bathroom, for how all the happy songs on the radio seem to remind him of her. “That, yes. Dating.”

Harry blessedly doesn’t say anything like, _I’ve seen you snort cocaine off of one guy, snog another three, go home with a fifth and get a sixth’s number at brunch the next morning — get the fuck away from my sister right now, you unworthy filthy trollop._ Instead, he just repeats, “Dating.”

Nick meets his eyes, still trying to get his head around it. “Oh god, we’re _dating_.”

 _Dating._ Present tense. Oh god, he is dating Gemma Styles.

Harry looks equally shocked, which is fair enough. He’s only had about a minute to digest this, unlike Nick, who’s apparently laughably behind on his own processing of the situation. “You’re _dating_ my sister?”

“Yes,” Nick says incredulously. “It would appear so.”

Harry just looks confused for a long time. “Um, I don’t—”

It was coming; Nick had known it was. Harry will be kind about it, but it’s still his _sister_ that Nick’s been messing about with. “I know I’m terrible. I know she can do better. She hasn’t quite worked that out yet, though, so. I’m fucking mad about her, Haz.”

Gemma’s hand tightens a little on the back of his neck. They’ve not even had the chat, but she’s got his key on her keychain and they’re telling her brother. She must know how he feels.

Harry’s eyes soften strangely. “Oh my God. You’re serious.”

Nick chews his lips. “Maybe,” he says. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I am. Mad about her. Uh, maybe.”

Harry spends a long moment looking at his sister, seemingly having a conversation with sibling wizardry or telepathy or something silent and anxiety-inducing like that. His face does this wrinkly, soft, fond thing. “ _Gem_.”

Her hand curls around Nick’s neck and settles on his collarbone, fingertips tucked beneath the collar of his shirt. “He’s proper in love with me,” she says after a while. “Like, obsessed.”

Nick whips his head around to snap something like _Excuse you, Gemma Styles?!_ but her face is doing… things. She looks at him like maybe she wants to tell her own mother about him, like she wants to get a family Spotify subscription with him, like maybe she uses words like ‘boyfriend’ when she talks about him to her hairdresser.

It slows the frantic pounding in his chest right the fuck down. Oh god, they’re _dating_.

“You’re not terrible,” she says softly, leaning closer to him. Her cheeks are a little pink, like that time she stood by a tube stop with him for thirty minutes instead of catching her train. “You’re so completely _not terrible_ you don’t even know.”

Nick never thought he’d ever be _not terrible_ to someone who looked at him like that.

Oh God, he’s going to try to kiss her in front of her brother.

(He needs to google some more things. Quite urgently.)

A commotion in the kitchen snaps Nick out of his reverie, the sound of bottles being reshuffled in his liqour cabinet. “Haz?”

Harry grins over his shoulder, already brandishing the bottle of 1988 Champagne Krug Vintage Brut over his head. He’s been eyeing it for years, trying to convince Nick to open it at the end of nearly every party Nick’s thrown. “We’re opening the expensive one, mate. I have a lot of invasive questions.”

Nick doesn’t know how to argue, much less point out that the bottle is older than both Nick and Gemma and probably worth more than Harry himself. The popping of the cork rings out like a gun shot and seems to land somewhere near the bookshelf. Stinky runs circles around it, yapping. Harry’s laughing as he fills three flutes. “What the actual fuck,” he calls, licking spilled champagne off his hand. “Can I be there when you tell mum?”

“Absolutely not!” Gemma’s fingers tighten around Nick’s, quick and hard, just once. Her eyes are smiling when he meets her gaze again. “Well that wasn’t a disaster, I don’t think.”

“No,” Nick agrees, looking from her bright eyes to her beautiful mouth. Maybe he can just kiss her without asking, maybe he’s allowed to now. Maybe she’d even want him to. “Might kiss you later, even if he’s still here. Just so you know.”

“I think I’d like that,” she whispers. “Anytime.”

Nick has a date with some rooftops, next, he reckons.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/post/161561943544/and-love-the-aftertaste)
> 
>  
> 
> Title from [“All Time Low” by Jon Bellion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXnqkVTFUqY).
> 
> [tumblr](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/jiksax) | [email](mailto:ifckfairies@gmail.com?Subject=Hey%20girl)  
> 


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